Home parties, events, and barbeques often feature a mixture of warm and cold foods that require temperature control to prevent growth of bacteria associated with foodborne illness. Such cold foods may include mayonnaise as an ingredient for potato salad, macaroni salad, and coleslaw. Fruit salads or condiments, such as salad dressing and dips for various chips, are also susceptible to bacterial contamination that results in guests becoming ill from food poisoning. Foodborne illness is a common, and preventable public health problem caused by consuming contaminated foods or beverages. Guidelines for preventing foodborne contamination of cold foods include covering food items, using a food thermometer to measure the food's internal temperature every two hours, and disposing of the food item when the temperature of a cold food item rises above forty-one degrees Fahrenheit (41° F.).
Rather than repeatedly measuring the temperature of cold foods during an event, often times hosts may improvise a cooling station by placing a bowl of cold food inside a larger bowl filled with ice, or provide smaller serving bowls, thus requiring numerous trips to refill the bowl, which may already be harboring bacteria. Other hosts may opt to provide food items that are less likely to grow bacteria, although this may deprive guests of favorite dishes and may not actually prevent guests from becoming ill from warm food. Food waste occurs from having to dispose of food that has been left out too long or that is not eaten by guests. This is not desirable.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a temperature-controlled food chilling device that addresses the disadvantages described above.